


Everything That You Fear

by SEMellark



Series: Iwatobi Ghoul [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Blood, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Makoto has zero fucks to give, Murder, Mutilation, Tokyo Ghoul AU, touch his husband and you die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3376799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto shouldn’t have killed all those Doves. He should have eaten pieces of them and left them there to suffer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything That You Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, decided to come back to this series. Who knows if more will come of it at this point. I have a weird fascination with it.
> 
> You'll probably have to read "A World Without You" to understand the significance of this one.

Makoto walks into the building uncontested, as if he actually belongs. He hasn’t been to Tokyo in years, not since his parents disappeared, and these aren’t the circumstances under which he'd hoped he would return.

One of Rin’s friends hacked into the security system beforehand and cut the video feed, so Makoto doesn’t bother with his mask just yet. It would only set everyone off, anyway.

_“If you think you’re gonna just barge in there and nicely ask for him back, you’ve got another thing coming. It won’t happen.”_

_“That doesn’t matter. I have to try.”_

_“It’s suicide, Makoto!”_

He wonders why he was so afraid all those years. He’s in an establishment filled with Doves and not one has noticed that a stranger is in their midst. Makoto does receive odd glances, however, as he stands quietly in the middle of the lobby, hands in the pockets of his overcoat as he assesses his situation.

These off-duty Doves seem less than competent, but then, they probably never thought a ghoul would purposefully enter one of their bases. Surely, they aren’t prepared.

Makoto still isn’t sure if this makes him brave… or utterly stupid.

“Sir?” A woman approaches him. Makoto flashes his gaze over her, wishing for all the world that things could be different. She really does seem like a nice person, but she’s practically saturated with the scent of stale ghoul’s blood, and no matter how innocent she seems, Makoto will not let that slide. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I can’t forgive you for hurting him.” Makoto says, and her expression furrows in confusion mere seconds before her blood splatters on the tile floor.

_“You can’t expect me to leave him there to rot. It’s been too long already.”_

_“At least let me call some buddies of mine. If you go charging in there alone, the Doves will laugh in your face right before they kill you and take your Kagune. You have to accept the possibility that Haru might already be – “_

_“I guess I’ll find out when I get there.”_

They come filing out with their briefcases, shouting orders to interns and trainees while Makoto takes advantage of the chaos to don his mask and follow the vaguest traces of Haru’s scent. He keeps his Kagune at the ready, flared and rigid at the small of his back, deflecting various attacks from the humans that Makoto can sense at the edge of his senses.

His sole focus is on locating Haru. His scent is laid out like a map before Makoto, left behind by the Doves who have most likely been torturing him for the past two weeks.

Makoto has half a mind to track them all down and hurt them as they hurt Haru, but that can wait.

First, he has to find him.

_“Like hell you’re going alone.”_

_“You can’t come with me. You have obligations, Rin. You know Kou wouldn’t be able to take care of your mom by herself if something were to happen to you. Stay with them. I can get Haru back on my own.”_

_“Dammit, Makoto, this is crazy! I know he’s your mate, but Haru wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger like this for his sake. Not after you almost died once before. You’ve never even gone on a hunt by yourself!”_

Rin had seemed to doubt him a lot in those days before Makoto left for Tokyo. Makoto might have agreed with him once upon a time, but that was before the humans captured Haru, before Makoto caught a glimpse of what a future without his mate would be like.

Everything is different without Haru in the worst way possible. They’ve been together for so long, depended on one another when there was no one else, and Makoto won’t rest until he retrieves Haru from the hands of those who don’t understand him.

Makoto thinks he could go on if Haru were to die, if he tried. But he doesn’t want to, not after everything they’ve been through. To lose Haru now would be a crushing blow from which Makoto would never recover.

Makoto wasn’t there to protect Haru when he really needed him, so there is no room for failure this time.

_“You think no one will suffer if you don’t come back? What about Rei and Nagisa? What about Kou and my mom? You and Haru mean so much to them, to me!”_

_“I’m sorry, Rin, I really am, but I’m leaving for Tokyo as soon as possible. I have to. Haru is the only person I have left to protect.”_

It becomes rapidly clear that the facility is understaffed. Makoto whittles down their numbers easily, and he manages to interrogate the passcode to the elevator that leads down to the holding cells from one of the Doves before he kills her.

The hallways reek of iron, even long after Makoto leaves the main floor and heads into the basement. The young ghoul thinks that he should feel some kind of remorse for having killed all of those people, but all he really feels is a sense of cold indifference.

The long weeks without Haru have changed him. Makoto is completely aware of that fact, but the only thing that bothers him is the possibility of not being the same man Haru remembers. He doubts Haru will think poorly of him for the choices he’s made, but the thought still nags at his mind.

Makoto has never been in a Dove facility before, so his steps are slow and cautious as he exits the elevator on the bottom floor. It wouldn’t surprise him if there were traps designed for ghouls down here, but everything is quiet as Makoto moves further down the darkened hall.

There are cell doors on either side of him with no windows or bars, empty but still harboring the faintest traces of ghouls who have long departed from this place. The lights above each of the doors aren’t functioning, but there is one toward the end of the hall with a blaring red light that pierces through the dark.

Makoto approaches it, insides churning with anticipation and dread, because he has no way of knowing what lays inside the cell. Haru could have already been shipped to the bigger internment facility miles away, and if that is the case, Makoto’s chances of recovering him are slim to none.

But still. He won’t know for certain if he doesn’t try.

Makoto lifts a hand to the cell door. It seems to be carbon based, some kind of synthetic steel designed specifically to counteract Kagune. Supposedly impenetrable.

But Makoto isn’t worried. He inherited his mother’s Kagune, and demolition was her specialty.

He feels the familiar tug of skin at the small of his back as his Kagune starts to shift. It creeps up his back and then down his arm, encasing the skin in a dark green shell. Makoto flexes his fingers, frowning at his hand, remembering when his mother taught him how to do this.

It takes a few tries – well, more like a dozen direct hits since he’s so out of practice – but Makoto manages to make a big enough dent in the cell door that he can encase his other hand and use both active Kagune to, essentially, tear open the metal.

He recalls his Kagune as he steps into the cell, trying to keep his legs from shaking.

Haru is just a huddled shape on the floor, wearing a torn and bloody version of the outfit he had on the day Makoto last saw him. He’s chained to the wall at his ankles, and from the looks of it, they don’t give him much reach. For a moment, it doesn’t even look like Haru is alive.

Makoto practically flies to him, falling to his knees amidst the grime of the floor and yanking off his mask, tossing it to the side.

“Haru!” He grabs the other ghoul by his arms, heaving him upright, hoping he’s not hurting him but too scared to be more careful. They need to get out of here before reinforcements arrive, but Makoto can’t seem to do much of anything until Haru opens his eyes. “Haru, can you hear me?”

On any other day, Haru’s weak groan would spike a sense of worry in Makoto’s gut, but at this point, it’s all the young ghoul can do to keep from sobbing.

Makoto leans Haru against his chest as he turns his attention to the chains. He reaches forward for the one attached to Haru’s left ankle, but his Kagune beats him to it, shooting forward and slicing through the metal of its own accord. Normally this would disturb him, but all he can really be is grateful.

“Mako – “ Haru’s voice is low and grating, weak, hesitant, as if he doesn’t really believe the nightmare is ending.

“It’s me. It’s me, I’m right here.” Makoto says, and Haru does a full body shudder against him. “I’m gonna take you home now, okay? They won’t get to you after this.”

Haru doesn’t say anything for a time, and it’s just as well, because the video cameras should be up and running any minute now, and Makoto needs to think.

He makes a grab for his mask just as Haru murmurs, “You don’t… smell the same.”

Makoto isn’t as horrified as he thought he would be.

* * *

The recovery process is long and grueling, but Makoto had expected no less.

Haru was bed-ridden for the first few weeks, and Makoto never left the apartment unless it was to find food. Sometimes Rin helped him, but Makoto had become accustomed to hunting alone and didn’t really mesh with Rin’s style as well as he used to.

He knew he couldn’t avoid Rei or Nagisa for very long, not after the events of recent months, and he set out to find them the same day he brought Haru back to tell both humans to stay away from his and Haru’s apartment until he contacted them again.

Neither of them had protested or even asked for an explanation. Nagisa had seemed put-off by Makoto’s uncharacteristic coolness, Rei regarding Makoto as if he were a stranger, but the ghoul couldn’t find it within himself to regret his harshness.

Even if they didn’t understand, Makoto was trying to protect them. Haru’s condition was unstable at that point, and it was a struggle to keep him from going after their neighbors after his weeks of starvation. Rin often had to stay with Haru when Makoto went out to keep him from going on a binge, but most days, all Rin had to report when Makoto returned was that Haru spent all his time sleeping.

Isolating himself and Haru was for the best. Neither of them were the same people they’d been before, and after all the life-altering changes they’d endured, a little peace and quiet was needed to mend what had been broken.

But not everything could be fixed.

Haru had nightmares. Some days he looked at Makoto like he didn't know who he was, and others he would refuse to let the other ghoul leave his sight. He wouldn’t talk about what the Doves had done to him, nor would he let Makoto see his body in any kind of light.

Makoto himself was admittedly more guarded. He harbored an acute anger and hatred for the Doves that left him irritable most days, and sometimes his Kagune activated without his consent, when the slightest noise or movement startled him into being defensive, even if it was just Haru.

They didn’t have the room or time to be distant from one another. That had happened once before, back when Rin and Haru had killed the human twins, and Makoto wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

He wouldn't push Haru to talk to him about what happened back in that facility, but Makoto himself was content to just sit in bed with Haru and talk while his mate listened.

Makoto spoke of nothing. He spoke of everything. He talked about the aftermath of Haru’s disappearance and the struggle to locate him, the ghouls he’d employed and the humans he’d interrogated.

Haru always listened dutifully. Sometimes he took Makoto’s hand in his lap and ran the pads of his fingers over the new calluses on the skin, never looking up or stopping in his task until Makoto had finished talking.

“I never wanted you to be like me.” Haru had said it out of the blue one day, nearly a month after he’d been liberated. Makoto was detailing the events of the rescue but stopped when he noticed the odd look on Haru’s face.

Makoto couldn’t help but laugh. Haru had looked like it was the single most heartbreaking thing he’d ever heard.

“You know, I don’t think I’m like you at all.” Makoto said once he collected himself. “This whole thing made me something else altogether.”

They tried to deal with it as well as they could. But they were young, they were inexperienced, and they were scared.

All Makoto had really done by shutting out the world was delay the inevitable.

* * *

The phone rings when Makoto is waiting for Haru to finish with his bath. Haru is still unwilling to let Makoto see him in a state of undress, so even if Makoto isn’t certain about letting Haru move around on his own just yet, he’ll allow him this privacy.

He doesn’t bother checking the Caller ID, as Rin is the only person who contacts them nowadays, so when he answers only to hear an ear-splitting, “ _Mako-chan_!” from the other end, the ghoul is caught off-guard.

“Nagisa?” Lying before him are miscellaneous pieces of human flesh that he’d been preparing for dinner. He feels caught in a lie even if Nagisa can’t see him. “What – “

“I’m in Tokyo with my family.” Nagisa’s words are rushed and quiet, and there’s a slight echo when he speaks, as if he’s in some small, enclosed room. “Haru-chan’s face is everywhere!”

Makoto’s blood runs cold. It isn’t news to him, he’d been expecting that the Doves would try to collect Haru once again. But he’d never wanted Nagisa to find out this way. “I – “

“You guys have to _go!”_

“W – Wait, what?”

“My parents – My sisters – “ Nagisa sounds like he’s about to start crying. “They saw the pictures, the wanted posters, you can’t go anywhere here without seeing one. My dad went to see the Investigators. I think he’s telling them that you and Haru-chan are in Iwatobi.”

Haru never wanted this. He never wanted to go to school, to make human friends, to live _normally._ It was all Makoto’s wants, Makoto’s desire to hide from the blood his parents had given him, and it had all backfired.

Nagisa’s parents, the same people who had invited Makoto and Haru to so many family dinners, were selling them out. It was almost hilarious.

“You could have _told_ us!” Nagisa cries, and Makoto winces, abandoning his preparations when he hears the bathroom door opening. “Rei-chan and I – We wouldn’t have said anything. We wouldn’t have hurt you!”

“We didn’t think you would.” Makoto says firmly, voice level despite his inner panic. Haru is standing in the middle of the hallway, fully clothed but still sopping wet as he watches Makoto through narrowed blue eyes. “But please understand. We’ve spent our whole lives running from this. We’ve never told anybody.”

“It doesn’t even matter. It doesn’t. Just – “ Nagisa sniffs loudly, and Makoto realizes that he won’t be seeing his friend in person for a long, long time. “Just run. Don’t let them get you. They can’t convince me that Haru-chan deserved to be tortured like an animal.”

“You know about that?” Makoto asks sullenly, and Haru must have heard what Nagisa said, because something in his eyes changes.

“Yeah. In the papers I saw, they said Haru-chan wasn’t much of a threat anymore because they removed his… what is it called? Kagune?”

Haru drops his gaze to the floor, the slump of his shoulders speaking volumes that words couldn't possibly, and all Makoto can do is stare.

“Thank you, Nagisa. For everything. We’ll call you when we can.” Makoto says quietly before hanging up, letting his arm drop back down to his side listlessly.

And it all makes sense. The pained winces whenever Haru arches his back, his refusal to let Makoto see him undressed.

He was hiding the fact that they’d taken his Kagune from him.

For a ghoul, it’s the ultimate humiliation.

“Haru.” Makoto says, but there’s nothing he can follow up with to really convey how he feels. “Show me.”

Haru doesn’t hesitate this time. He grabs the hem of his wet t-shirt as he turns around, lifting it up to show Makoto the small of his back.

The younger ghoul immediately feels his eyes well up, and his tongue thickens with the urge to vomit. He hasn’t found the time to cry since Haru was captured, and now still doesn’t seem like the appropriate time even after learning what the Doves did to his mate.

Ghouls don’t scar easily. Haru should have already healed completely in the weeks since he was freed, but the small of his back is marred with haphazard scars. The skin is dark purple in places, bright red in others, the skin pulled taut where it tried to stitch itself back together after not being properly treated.

“They took it the very first day.” Haru says. His voice is toneless and blank in a way Makoto knows isn’t fake. “I felt everything when they removed the sacs. They would stop when I passed out from the pain and wait until I came around to keep going.”

Makoto sees red. He shouldn’t have killed all those Doves. He should have eaten pieces of them and left them there to suffer, regardless of the fact that they’d all seen his face. If only he’d known what they did to Haru back then, he would’ve made sure they understood the error of what they’d done before the night was over.

Haru lowers his shirt again, and when he turns around to face Makoto, his eyes are stained black and red. Makoto doubts his own look any different.

“The human who caught me – “ Haru pauses. “She had my mother’s Kagune, I – I couldn’t _do_ anything, Makoto, I just let her… take me to that… _place._ ”

Makoto shakes his head. He understands now, how as skilled a ghoul as Haru was taken in the first place. In the back of their minds, the two of them always held some hope that their parents were alive somewhere. They never spoke about it, but the thought was there.

To receive confirmation that the woman who brought him into the world was indeed gone must have paralyzed Haru, and the Dove took advantage of his shock to capture him. She couldn’t have known that she was fighting the son of the ghoul whose Kagune she’d stolen, but the damage was certainly done unbeknownst to her.

Makoto doesn’t know what he would do if he were faced with his mother’s Kagune in battle, or even his father’s. He’d never wanted himself or Haru to face that reality.

“I’d ask you to leave me here,” Haru says softly, and Makoto stiffens, “but I know you won’t. I don’t think I’m of any use to you now, but I know you don’t see me that way. Just understand that I won’t be able to hunt or protect us properly now. It’ll be all on you.”

Before, the thought might have intimidated Makoto. Until recently, he never considered himself up to the task of protecting Haru and those close to them.

But Makoto learned a lot about himself after Haru was captured. He never really gave himself enough credit before.

The things he thought he could never do, the countless ways in which he thought he could let Haru down, it was all in his head.

“I understand now.” Haru says, and his eyes slowly return to normal, the black receding at the edges while his irises change from ruby to sapphire. “Why you hate being a ghoul.”

“I don’t anymore.” Makoto finds himself saying, amused by Haru’s dubious expression. “What I hated was the misconception. I saw myself the way the humans do. But after everything that’s happened, I’d say that humans are just as monstrous as us.”

Haru frowns. “Even Rei and Nagisa?”

“Everyone has darkness inside them, even Rei and Nagisa, although I think it would take a lot to bring theirs to the surface.” Makoto extends his hand to Haru, which his mate takes, albeit cautiously. “We kill because we need to live. But humans… they kill because they want to. Because they can. I can’t say that what we do is okay, but it’s a necessity. We can’t change it.”

“Maybe all this has been good for you.” Haru murmurs, somewhat darkly, though he tightens his hold on Makoto’s hand as he leads him toward their bedroom to collect their things. This is the second time they’ve had to pack up and run in their short lives, though Makoto thinks the roles have changed somewhat. “I never had a prayer of convincing you of all this on my own.”

“Maybe not.” Makoto agrees, pressing a brief kiss to Haru’s hair. “And I can’t say if all these changes have been for the better, but I’m still going to protect you until you’re one hundred percent again, okay? We’ll be fine.”

“I doubt I’m ever going to be in peak condition ever again, Makoto.”

“Hmm. We’ll see.”

* * *

They run, and they don’t tell anyone where they’re going, mostly because they don’t know themselves.

It’s hard to run from Haru’s face, plastered nearly everywhere in the 20th Ward, and Makoto knows that if they want to survive, if they want to live instead of merely exist, they need to leave and seek shelter in another Ward.

They mostly travel at night, when they can keep to the shadows and hide their faces. Haru slowly regains some of his lost confidence along the way, trying his hand at hunting without the aid of a Kagune.

Makoto always stays close at hand, perched on rooftops as he observes his mate’s revised technique. Haru has killed without his Kagune before – like the drunken man and his son from before – but he always had his biological weapon to fall back on if things went array.

Watching Haru stalk his unwitting victim, Makoto thinks that neither of them have to worry about Haru’s hunting ability. Regular humans can’t really fight back, so it’s Doves they have to consider, as well as hostile ghouls they may encounter.

But Makoto isn’t too concerned. He doesn’t plan on letting Haru out of his sight in dangerous territory, at least not until they come up with some solution to Haru’s lack of defense.

For now, they just have to focus on building Haru up to how he used to be, both physically and mentally. Some of his scars will never heal, as the impact they left are almost as strong as the traumatic removal of his Kagune, but Makoto’s determined to alleviate whatever pain he can.

Makoto glances down to the empty street below when the scent of blood hits him, and he sees Haru standing over the body of the human male he’d been trailing.

The younger ghoul crouches down at the edge of the rooftop, balancing his weight on the soles of his feet and resting his elbows on his knees.

“You’re improving.” Makoto says with more than a hint of pride. “I didn’t even hear him scream.”

Haru shifts his weight before tilting his head to stare up at Makoto. The blood around his mouth almost matches the color of his irises, and Makoto doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything quite as alluring.

And Haru smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Can I just say that I think it's fucked up that the Investigators in TG use the kagune of the parents to freaking fight their kids? 
> 
> Talk about emotionally traumatizing children. Not that they care, of course.


End file.
